[IMPORTANT: Donald Trump held a half-hour press gaggle on the flight from Palm Beach to Joint Base Andrews on January 5, 2020. The conversation was off-the-record, with portions subsequently put on the record. As such, there is no press recording of the gaggle, nor any official transcript from the White House Press Office] [What is below is captured from the White House pool report, which provided verbatim quotes and context from the gaggle, but not a verbatim transcript of the on-the-record portions. Please read the below with the context discussed here.] [Not captured in pool notes, relating to Iranian cultural sites] They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. they’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site?. It doesn’t work that way. [Not captured in pool notes, relating to retaliation from Iran] If it happens it happens. If they do anything there will be major retaliation [Not captured in pool notes, relating to Iraq] So with Iraq, we've spent a lot of money in Iraq. I told you, Iraq, was the worst decision, going into the Middle East was the worst decision ever made in the history of our country, and I've said that publicly so I guess I can say that right now.going into the Middle East was the worst decision ever made in the history of our country, but we are there and they went into Iraq. Iraq, by the way, they didn't knock down the World Trade Center. That's been very nicely proven. But we went in and we're there and we're pulling out, pulling out of a lot of different areas. With Syria, I pulled out because I'm not going to guard his border. Why should I be guarding the border? They've got troops, let em guard, that border's been under siege, for thousands of years they've been fighting on that border. We call it the safe zone, it's really the opposite of the safe zone, many many people have been killed and by the way many people from Turkey have been killed, it's a double. We're not leaving unless they pay us back for it. [Not captured in pool notes, relating to parliament's move to remove U.S. troops from Iraq] We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. Long before my time We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it. If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis. We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame. If there’s any hostility, that they do anything we think is inappropriate, we are going to put sanctions on Iraq, very big sanctions on Iraq. [Not captured in pool notes, relating to releasing intelligence on the Suleimani drone strike] We may discuss that. [Not captured in pool notes, relating to Suleimani] Very specifically for 18 months” and really since beginning of term He was leading his country down a very bad dangerous path. [Not captured in pool notes, relating to a U.S. servicemember killed in Kenya] We lost a good person, just a great person. [Not captured in pool notes, relating to North Korea] I don’t think he’d break his word to me but maybe he will.